Temporal Mechanics and Jake
by ALC Punk
Summary: Doctor Who, BSG 2003. So how did a dog get to New Caprica, and where has he been since then?


Disclaimer: Not mine.  
Rating: Eh. Pretty low. Kiddie.  
Pairing: Jake/Water bowl.  
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.  
Spoilers: Doctor Who through oldskool through newskool until a bit past season two's midpoint. BSG through Exodus.  
Words: 3,000 Notes: This one is for sabaceanbabe who wanted Jake the dog fic. It's three times as long as it would have been because I'd already written Four's segment and then Ten's hit, and I needed desperately to keep Two about, and... Yes. 

_**Temporal Mechanics and Jake**_ by ALC Punk!

In the beginning, Jake was a puppy--of course, he wasn't Jake then. He was a fairly happy puppy, but he found that most people didn't know how to handle him. This made Jake said, and he searched for a while before stumbling across a man and a girl.

"What is it?" The girl sounded uncertain as she bent down to inspect Jake.

Jake, for his part, wagged his tail and barked at her.

"It's a dog, Zoe. An abandoned one, I believe." The man also bent, but he immediately set to scratching Jake's ears.

This made Jake rather happy. He took to the man and decided that, at last, he had found a human he could call home. Leaning into the man's touch, he wriggled. This was the sort of stuff dreams were made of, after all.

"You should name him," the man suggested.

"Name him? But, Doctor, whatever for?"

"He's a dog, Zoe. Dogs need names."

"All right, then." The girl paused in her scratching, and considered. "I suppose, well, Jake will do?"

"Jake." With a nod, the man jumped to his feet and clapped his hands. "That's perfect, Zoe. Now, come along, we have things to attend to."

"Can we bring Jake?"

"But of course!"

"Doctor, we've got tae go!" Called a boy.

The two hurried, Jake trailing them until they came to their vehicle. Jake gave the boy a cursory sniff, then followed them all inside. It was a strange place, it felt like a house and a home and made Jake feel very strangely confused at times. Mostly, though, he wandered around, playing fetch in the pale corridors and hiding under the vines.

Until one day, the girl and the boy and the man let him outside again. The place was different, and Jake barked experimentally, unable to quite understand what had changed.

Jake tagged along until he got interested in smells and distracted and then rather lost.

Finally realizing that they had lost him, he sat down and barked.

Jake barked for a long time, but the man and his friends didn't return.

--

"Professor, I'm bored." Ace wasn't above stating the obvious to her traveling companion. She just usually did it without the whining edge. Still, the pastoral view was rather boring. In the distance, horses moved, and there appeared to be a village. She would rather have had a city with cars, and possibly opportunity for blowing shit up--or over-throwing a government or two. That always seemed to cheer her up.

"Just a minute, Ace. There's something I'm forgetting." The Doctor frowned, one hand on his chin. "Something I noted in my diary that I had to do..."

The sound of a dog barking distracted Ace and she left the Doctor in his pondering and wandered towards it. Over a small hummock of grass, she found a dog sitting. It barked. "Good boy," Ace offered as she moved closer, eyeing him. And wondering how someone could be so criminal as to abandon a dog in the middle of nowhere. "Hello."

And then the dog paused and stared at her disconcertingly. He barked once and leaned forward to sniff her fingers. His tail went up, and he gave her the doggie equivalent of a smile.

"Nice doggie," Ace rubbed his ears.

"Ace, where have you go to?" The Doctor sounded irritated.

Probably, he hadn't remembered what it was he'd forgotten. Ace grinned at the dog, "He's an old man, dog. Gotta give him a bit of time to catch up." Raising her voice, she called, "Over here!"

"Always wandering off," he muttered as he came up behind her. "What've you found?"

Rolling her eyes, Ace replied dryly. "It's a dog, Professor. What's it look like?"

"A dog." He tsked. And then he paused. "Oh. Oh, dear. Yes. That was it. Jake!"

Perhaps it was the dog's name. Ace rather thought it a bit odd, but didn't object. The dog, however, bounced up and barked in agreement before dashing past her to the Doctor. Surprisingly, he bent down and scratched the dog in the correct spot behind his ears. "Hullo, Jake."

Jake barked back.

Ace blinked, "Professor?"

"Ace!" Grinning, he gestured, "Meet Jake. I'm afraid I accidentally left him here quite a while ago. Of course, it's not the only place he'll be left, but this was a miscalculation. Zoe was upset for days afterwards, but we couldn't go back. Not then."

Deciding temporal mechanics wasn't something she wanted to consider, Ace shook her head, "This is what we came for, is it?"

"Indeed, Ace. Indeed."

Jake barked again.

Really, it was rather anti-climactic. Ace sighed, "Can we go now?"

"Yes. Come along, you two."

And so it was that Jake rejoined the TARDIS crew. Although he was lost rather quickly into the confines of the TARDIS, and Ace never saw him again.

--

Rose found the dog. Well, Jake found Rose, actually. She was puttering around and he bounced out of his favorite hiding place to greet her. She'd been quite surprised and had dragged him back to the console room. "D'you remember you've got a dog?"

Her tone was indignant.

The Doctor looked up from his fiddling and blinked. Then a manic grin spread across his face, "Jake!"

Jake, for his part, sniffed at him, recognizing this was, yet again, his human. And yet not exactly. He barked in query.

"Aw, Jake, it's good to see you!" The Doctor dropped to his knees and grabbed Jake by the head, shaking him a bit. "Who's a good doggie?"

Jake licked him happily, planting his paws on the Doctor's trousers.

"Now, where have you been? Let's see, I picked you up from New Caprica and left you with Alistaire... No, wait..." The Doctor frowned, "Oh, dear. Rose, where's my thousand-year diary?"

"I don't know, you never put it where I can find it."

"Well, there's a good reason for that. And right now, that reason is because I've mucked about a bit too handily with temporal history."

"You what?"

"My history, to be exact. Or rather, Jake's." The Doctor grinned at Jake. "I'm just a forgetful old time lord, aren't I, Jake?"

Jake barked. He could definitely agree with that one.

"Now, if I remember right, Leela and K-9--oh, K-9!--found you on New Caprica. But then I also found you on Earth. Or I think it was Earth. I was a bit busy with plots at the time. And that's when you got lost--we were supposed to drop you for the rest, and didn't."

"Doctor, you're not making sense."

"That's because temporal physical causality makes little sense until you cock everything up."

"What?"

"Never mind." The Doctor bounced to his feet and set the coordinates swiftly. "C'mon, old girl. Do it again, just this once."

With the sound Jake had stopped paying attention to, his home that wasn't a home stopped moving.

"Right. Let's see. Atmosphere checks, time checks... Composition of the local encampment checks out... We just have to dodge all of the cylon centurions." The Doctor grinned and flicked the door open. "Come along, Jake. And Rose."

"I suppose I'll have to tell Mickey--if we see him again--that they named the dog Jake," Rose muttered as she followed him out into the bleak evening.

Jake felt he should have some surprise when his human stopped next to a tent and pile of junk. But he didn't, really. "Now, this looks about right." The Doctor found a length of cabling and Jake allowed him to attach it to his collar. Though he did consider barking.

A moment later, the free end was attached to a tent pole. "Now, Jake. You stay here, all right?" His human scratched his ears. "Remember, I'll be back for you, ok?"

The sound of marching boots came from nearby and Rose shivered a little at the memories they conjured. "Doctor, we should go."

He glanced over his shoulder, "Hang on, Rose. I'm almost done here."

"Yeah, well, I don't think the metal men are going to be too happy about us being here." The metal men were actually not paying them any attention, being far too busy stomping up the streets a few tents over.

Jake barked at him, then whined as his human turned away. "Well, no, but I think they'll ignore us as something they can't comprehend."

"What are they, are they cybermen?"

"Not exactly." He slung an arm around her shoulders and headed back to the TARDIS. His voice carried back to Jake, "You see, there were these colonies..."

"Wait, Doctor, you're not really gonna just leave Jake here? Who will take care of him?"

"Rose, it's part of history, it's already happened."

"Yeah," Rose pulled away and came back, bending down to scratch Jake's ears, "But how are they going to know his name, and that he likes being scratched behind the ears and stuff?"

"It's not like I can leave them a note, Rose. This is strictly a fly-by-night operation. In, out, and gone before anyone notices."

Jake nuzzled Rose's hand, not really caring what they were saying.

"You could leave a note, though. You don't have to tell them any of that temporal crap.. Just... tell them his name is Jake."

"Yeah, but in what language?"

"Well..." Jake licked her hand as she seemed to flounder a bit. Apparently, her resolve kicked in. "You know where we are, Doctor, you know what language they can read."

"Oh, yes." He admitted.

"Good." Rose dug into her pocket and pulled out a pen. "Now, if there's just paper..."

"Rose, I'm not sure--"

"You can't just leave him without a note. It's not right!"

Jake barked in agreement.

"All right." The Doctor pulled a piece of paper with the corners removed from the pile of junk nearby and put on his spectacles. Then he took Rose's pen. "What should it say?"

"Um, how about, 'hello, my name is Jake, please take care of me.'?"

"Right, right." There was hasty scrawling, and the Doctor handed the pen back before rolling the paper and sticking it through Jake's collar. "There. Happy?"

"Yes." Rose kissed Jake and stood, "G'bye, Jake."

They walked away. Jake barked, but they didn't stop. They didn't even look back. Jake barked again. Really, this was beginning to get ridiculous, he thought.

Before he entered, the Doctor turned and called, "You be a good boy, Jake! See if you can help topple some totalitarian governments while you're here!"

Jake had no idea what that meant, so he barked again as his human disappeared into his home. When it started up and left, he barked some more. After all, this was not part of the deal. His human was supposed to travel with him--take him away!

"What in the--hey, boy." A different voice. A different human knelt down next to him, checking him over. He pulled the paper free and read it. "Hello, Jake. Where did you spring from, hrm?"

If he could have told him, Jake would've.

"Well," the man sighed, "Guess it doesn't matter. Cally and I can spare some food, I guess." He ruffled Jake's ears and disappeared to return with water in a dish, and a little food.

Maybe things weren't so bad, after all.

And his human had said he'd be back.

--

Jake didn't really expect to hear the sound again--especially after the other sounds he'd heard. The loud bangs, the crashes, the whines. They reminded him of once or twice while he was with his human in the strange home but not a home place. So it should have been no surprise that when he heard it, he rather disbelieved it. In fact, he hid, since he was afraid.

Besides, they kept messing with his water bowl, and that just wasn't on.

The sound was continuing, though, and was confusing him. The humans had left, the metal ones going, too. So who would be making noise?

Curiosity got the better of him, and Jake stuck a nose out, sniffling.

A whirring sound came in response. Metal.

He could smell metal, but not that metal. A different metal.

And human, and something familiar. Something savage and unchanging and as dry as paper. He snuffled again and poked his head out further. And something very very familiar.

"What have you discovered, K-9?"

The whirring, and then a reply, in a stangely monotone voice. "Mistress, it appears to be a four-legged animal of the canine variety."

"A dog!" The smell came closer, followed by a human who wasn't quite as civilized as Jake was used to. She smiled at him, crouching down. "Hullo, dog. What're you doing hiding under there?"

Jake allowed her to get close enough, and then sniffed the extended hand. He approved and she carefully stroked his fur. "You're very skinny, have they not been treating you well?"

"Leela! What have you--" The voice stopped, and Jake perked up. This scent was more familiar, somehow. He stood and half-barked towards the other human.

"Jake!" A delighted sound escaped the human and he rushed forward to kneel next to the metallic-smelling thing.

It was his person, and it wasn't. This confused Jake enough that he almost growled when the person reached out to fondle his ears, "Jamie did say it was stupid of me to forget about you, but I'm afraid things got rather too complicated that day."

"You abandoned him?" The female sounded miffed. "Such a poor doggie."

"I didn't abandon him, well at least, not deliberately, Leela. We got separated and then people were shooting at us, and we couldn't find him..."

"Poor Jake, forgotten by the mean old Doctor." Leela patted him again, then stood, "Where are his owners?"

"I'm not..." Standing himself, the Doctor peered around. "Pity Jake here can't tell us where we are. Although this does look frightfully familiar. Still, let's see what we can find, shall we?"

Jake barked in annoyance as they walked away from him.

"C'mon, Jake, c'mere, boy!"

Allowing himself to follow, Jake passed the metallic thing and paused, trying to decide why it felt like another dog and yet wasn't. Perhaps it was like the metallic humans. Made like them, to look like dogs.

"Master," chirped the thing, "this appears to be the planet designated New Caprica."

"New Caprica? Bosh. Why, New Caprica doesn't get settled--for the short time it's viable--for at least another hundred years."

"My sensors indicate Colonial religious symbols, and the atmospheric mix is correct."

"Intriguing." Jake caught the flash of teeth as the human looked back at them, "Because if this is New Caprica, then my diary is off by a mile. Still, let's see, shall we?" He set off again.

Leela trailed him with a sigh.

--

Jake was getting rather tired of all this to-ing and fro-ing. But at least this new abandonment seemed a slightly better deal. Leela had insisted on giving him a basket of food and a blanket before she'd leave. And there was even a nicely-written note on the door about him.

Really, all it needed was snow.

Jake rather liked snow.

Movement from within the house made his ears perk up and he gave a half-bark in interest.

The front door opened abruptly, and a woman stared down at him. "Good lord, a dog." She turned and called back into the house, peeling the note free, "Alistaire, someone's left a dog on our stoop."

"Really?" A man came from the depths and peered down at him. "Poor chap, he looks damned cold."

"Dear, he probably belongs to someone."

The man moved her out of the way and grabbed the basket. "Come along, chap. There's warmth in here, and we'll get you some fish, eh? Or how about some liver."

Jake barked in approval and dashed inside. He could smell carpet and couches and chairs, all for him to play on.

"Alistaire, you know that liver was for dinner."

"Now, Doris," the man replied, taking the note from her hand, "You know I detest liver."

"But it's good for you."

"Exactly." He chuckled and leaned in to kiss her cheek before reading the letter. "Oh, my. It's from the Doctor."

"And Ace?"

"I'm not quite sure. He says the dog is a friend who needs a home, and would we be so kind as to look after Jake until he comes back for him."

Doris sighed and shut the door, "And how long will that be?"

"I don't actually know."

She snorted, "I see. Come along, I suppose I'll have two of you to feed now."

"Yes, dear."

"Jake!" Doris called, "Get off the couch!"

Obeying, and enjoying just being in a place that felt like a home--a real home--Jake dashed back over and sat next to her when she paused in the kitchen doorway.

"See, he likes you, dear."

"Cozeners, the lot of you," she replied in amusement before bending down and scratching Jake's ears. "I suppose you can stay--until he comes back for you."

And Jake stayed until the Doctor came back for him. Sadly, for the Doctor, that happened after Jake had passed a happy ten years as companion to retired Brigadier Alistaire Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and his wife, Doris. The Doctor visited the small grave in the backyard, under the tree he'd helped plant years before. It seemed fitting, somehow.

-f-

Jake's viewpoint:  
1. Zoe, Jamie and 2 find the dog and then accidentally leave him behind somewhere.  
2. 7 and Ace find him, he gets lost in the TARDIS.  
3. 10 and Rose discover him and leave him on New Caprica.  
4. 4 and Leela pick him up.  
5. The Brigadier finds a dog on his doorstep. Doris tells him he can keep it.

From the Doctor's viewpoint:  
2 finds Jake, and accidentally leaves him behind.  
4 finds him again on New Caprica, which is not where he left him, and then takes him to the Brigadier until he can retrieve him.  
7 realizes he mucked his own history up somewhere and returns to Jake's first abandomment then loses him in the TARDIS.  
10 finds him and leaves him on New Caprica for his fourth incarnation to find.

That make sense? I should hope so, temporal mechanics makes my head hurt.


End file.
